


Reach Out

by VoteForNuke



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26134801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoteForNuke/pseuds/VoteForNuke
Summary: Sam is a hiker slowly making friends with an eccentric artist in the woods.
Relationships: Sam Porter Bridges/Higgs Monaghan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	Reach Out

**Author's Note:**

> A little short and janky, might add onto it later, but for now...

Mist hung low in the still morning. The bird song was soft and sporadic, interrupting the sacred silence. Sam moved between the fir trees as though they were gravestones, conscious of his noise. His boots against the damp earth and stones, his slightly labored breathing,  _ Low Roar  _ playing from the earbud swinging at his shoulder. At least Lou was quiet on his chest. 

Earlier, when the sky was pale with blue, she’d been enamored with the flycatchers swooping about for their breakfast. It was fascinating, watching her grow. She went from a lump that mostly cried and squirmed between eating and crapping, to curious, talkative, a budding human with personality and feelings, and even opinions. Lots of opinions. Slowy, the responsibility was dawning on Sam. In the past few months, all he had to do was meet her basic needs; feed her, bathe her, make sure she was warm and got plenty of sleep. He’d been a caregiver to a helpless animal, now he was a parent to a growing child. A growing human. Those sentimental remarks of ‘they grow up so fast’ were frustingly true. 

Sam tried to focus on his hike. Now that Lou was old enough to be toted around, he’d found his weekends consumed by forest and trail maps. It definitely wasn’t the worst way to spend his time. He could fall back on old habits, turn his weekends into alcohol soaked blurs, his weekdays, too. 

Hiking was a decent hobby. It let him get out of the house and still be away from people–-well, most of the time. Some of the other hikers Sam encountered could be a little chatty, especially with the baby on his chest. Then there were the weirdos, or should he say, The Weirdo. Scrawny guy, about half a foot too tall, facial tattoos under that dirty blonde hair. Sam first came across him when he was spray painting trees, wearing some gold skull airsoft mask and caped costume. He had lingered off the path, offering Sam a warm wave, like they were old friends; watching him until the tree cover grew too thick. As friendly as the guy wanted to seem, he scared Sam from that trail for a week or so. He came back when he thought it was safe, assuming the guy was just a nutty Seattle artist type come to deface wilderness for the day. 

Hand prints greeted Sam that day. Black, orange, and gold handprints. They were on the trees, the ground, the sizable stones and broken chunks of boulder, even the signs. The man was missing for several trips, but his presence was clear. Following the paint marks came the sculptures. Crude things made of trash that he caked with tar, abstract resemblances of whales and dolphins, or even squids. 

Sam came across him making one such creature, and that was the start of their ‘unique’...whatever it was. That time he’d been without his mask or cape, only detracting a few points from the weirdo score. He called himself Higgs and spoke with a Texan twang. The novelty of it wore off within moments, when Sam realized he was trapped listening to this man blabber on about his art. About the symbolism of ocean animals made of trash he scavenged from the beach, about the addition of tar, a material that saved countless ancient animal remains for humans to then discover and study, and did you know this entire continent used to be ocean? 

Unfortunately, Sam trapped himself when he said he knew about the Devonian Extinction. Of course he knew about it. One of his clients/tentative friends was an expert in this field and made sure Sam recognized it. It was then that Higgs  _ glowed,  _ explaining that he used to be an archeologist until he grew sick of reading the past and decided to focus on writing the future. That earned a little bit of Sam’s interest. At least, he didn’t feel like he was trapped with Higgs after that. They’d had several more conversations, sometimes about trivial things like the weather, sometimes a little deeper, exchanging ideas of an afterlife. 

It went on like that. Higgs would vanish, though his signs of operation grew, and then he would reappear to make Sam question if he should just find another trail. This one was the most beautiful, in his opinion. An inhospitable beach was near, it was long and winding, had lots of fallen trees for him to rest on when Lou needed attention. It was also the most vacant. There were never cars at the trailhead, never joggers or roadtripping families stopping to stretch their legs. It was pristine before Higgs came. Not that he really ruined anything. 

The first of the marked trees came into view. Sam couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed that he was actually looking for Higgs, today. Sure, he was weird, sometimes downright suffocating and even unnerving, but Sam never chose a different trail. Higgs was a strange one, but not in the serial killer way. He was strange in a way that Sam felt like he understood, or at least know better. 

Under the theratics, Higgs was an alright guy. Easy smile, quick with a joke, wrapped up in ideas that Sam found himself actually listening to. 

“Hey!” Higgs’ voice carried through the fog. Sam stopped, watching as he slowly grew visible. His hair was still dirty, put pushed away from his face. He was wearing a stained black tank top, exposed flesh flecked with tar, hands long stained black. “Watch it, I made a real mess up here.” He gave an apologetic grimace. “Draggin’ some trash across the rocks and the bag split right open.” 

“I’m sure I’ll manage.” Sam dipped his chin. Lou clapped her hands, legs drawing up as she made a strange squeal. Just the enthusiasm of a poorly socialized infant. 

“Hey, Lulu!” Higgs greeted, bending down with his arms braced on his knees. “How’s that big girl today?” 

“Pretty okay.” Despite their many meetings, Sam had yet to bloom into a conversationalist. Lou, however, happily babbled back. 

“Aw, well that’s great news.” Higgs straightened up, rubbing his palms together to scrub off the grime from his pants. “Hey, come check this out.” He jerked his head to the left, into the fog. Sam followed the motion into the thick blanket of grey. “It’s just right there, it’s what I was workin’ on when I heard you come up.”

Hesitantly, Sam followed. He might appreciate Higgs and his oddity, but that didn’t mean he trusted him unquestioningly. He hung back, letting Higgs stop at their supposed destination. He turned and gestured for Sam to follow, grin spreading across his face. A figure grew visible, short and formless. Even when he was standing over it, with Higgs grinning expectantly, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. 

A twisted shape of tar and...arms? Two heads? No, three heads. Kind of looked like a stump with a monkey crawling on it, maybe the stump had a branch?

“You like it?” Higgs prompted. 

“Sure,” Sam nodded. “What is it?” 

Higgs deflated, clapping his arms to his side. “C’mon,” he rolled his eyes. “Look! It’s you and Lou! See, that there’s you, and that’s her in your arms, and that’s your goofy hat.” He gestured over the shape, rather emphatically. 

Sam nodded again, slower, more methodically. “Okay. What’s the other thing?”

Higgs’ grin returned. “Well, that’s me.” 

“That’s you.” The funny little elongated shape was him. Well, at least he wasn’t vain. 

“Yep.” Higgs seemed strangely proud of himself. “I figured since I was makin’ the family portrait I might take a little liberty.” 

“Uh-huh.” Sam turned to head back to the trail, Higgs tagging along behind him. 

“It’ll look better in the light,” Higgs assured. “Come back tomorrow, then you’ll see how nice it is. You see, I also styled it off of Carl Jung’s ideas of ego, personal conscious, and collective conscious–-”

  
  



End file.
